Manhattann (NY), State College (Pennsylvania) and back to Brooklyn :)

So my Friday in Manhattan was spent wandering around mostly, rather than at Coney Island because the weather was a little bit suspect.
I took the subway down to the Meatpacking district and took a walk through the High Line Park. Once upon a time, freight trains used to come right through the Meatpacking district, this was really handy for all the factories and abattoirs but unfortunately there were a few problems with them mowing down pedestrians as they went on their way. So, the good people of NYC decided to lift the entire freight rail system up above the roads to around the first floor level on a series of bridges. Now that the freight trains no longer run through Manhattan, the bridges and railroads were abandoned, but rather than let them fall apart a volunteer group have bought out a stretch of track and started planting it up as park.

The view down to the street from the park^

Where the park ends for now and turns into concrete track again^

The flowers among the sleepers^

After walking down the stairs to street level again I came across this interesting accordion player:

He appeared to have some form of home made Star Wars head gear on... don't ask me why, but thats NYC for you.
I walked straight across Manhattan, past the Empire State Building...

... on my way to catch the Subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There was another big Picasso exhibition on there, as well as lots of statues and beautiful Tiffany stained glass.

Thats the Met as I left at 9pm... look how light it still is! And it was so warm still!

On Saturday I wandered over to Chinatown to catch the bus over to State College. The trip was only 4 hours... nothing compared to what I'm now used to! When I arrived in town, Tanya and I had a little mix up about where she was picking me up so we both ended up waiting 45 mins, only a block away from each other! Mix up sorted, we drove to her friend's house for a graduation party. It was a bit strange being at a graduation party when I didn't even know the person who was graduating, but actually I had a lot of fun. After the party we went to the $1 cinema to watch some chick flick... not normally my cup of tea, but it was only a dollar and it was a pretty nice way to spend the evening. Especially as the cinema was air conditioned and it was 32 degrees C outside (it sounds more impressive if you say 91F, but no one would understand that lol!)
The next day Tanya picked me up and showed me round town. State College itself is, surprisingly enough, home of Pennsylvania State College. And this is their football ground:

No joke, that is the football ground for the local university football team. It's crazy. It's the same size as our premier league football stadiums and they televise the matches too.

And, other than having a good gossip, that's been my past few days. Today I caught the bus back to NYC at 8am, and pretty much headed back to the hostel again and relaxed.

I'm not sure if I'll get another blog in this week, as I'll be home very soon and not like to be up to anything TOOOOO interesting, but we'll see.
Love you all!
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